Musings and pontifications from a reality based progressive

The right perspective

I think Mike Lux at Open Left has the right perspective on the current Palin feeding frenzy:

One of the reasons I wanted to write about Palin was to make the point that while all the work to raise questions about her and define her early is good work, I don’t believe that we should over-obsess about her, or spend too much time rushing to chase down every rumor and potentially negative story on her. My view is that her own lack of gravitas and ethical problems will leave her weakened enough that she won’t have much of an effect on this race (especially as women swing voters hear more about what a far-out right-winger she is), and that we should keep an eye on the prize: defining John McSame. Ultimately, Presidential elections are determined on the public’s views of the candidates running for President, not on the VP pick no matter how weak they are (see Bush/Quayle in 1988). Absent some major new scandal coming out, I’m guessing Palin will weaken the GOP ticket but not be kicked off it.

Eye on the prize folks, Palin is the distraction, McCain is the target. And as I said earlier, I expect she will remain on the ticket.

And a major reason why is how the evangelical base reacts to her. Many have commented on how the evangelical community reacts to her, and how the rank and file Republican delegates at the convention have reacted to not only Palin herself, but news of her daughter’s pregnancy and there’s almost an eerie sense of “disfunctional like us” vibe there. It puts the GOP base on familiar ground.

Perhaps we see why the McCain folks thought it was in their interest to move discussion to Palin’s daughter? Bad policies have bad consequences. One of the bad consequences of ignorance based sex education is an increase in teen pregnancy. Is it now impolite to discuss that fact since Palin, a vigorous advocate, has a pregnant daughter?